On the Front Lines of Coexistence: Courthézon’s Consistory in the Early Seventeenth Century

Judith P. Meyer

University of Connecticut–Waterbury

This study focuses on how the consistory in Courthézon steered a course of coexistence as the minority in a biconfessional town while maintaining the church’s confessional integrity. By examining two sets of illuminating cases from 1617 to 1631, the study shows that the consistory embraced the ideal of peaceful coexistence articulated in the edict of 1607. One set of cases dealt with Catholic-Protestant encounters in the town; the other set dealt with internal cases of révolte and intermarriage. The consistory chose its battles with the Catholic majority with care. It was committed to a course of coexistence to the extent that the edict protected the Reformed community. At the same time, though acting with dogged determination to bend parishioners to their disciplinary will, the consistory’s elders almost certainly treated those who strayed from the Discipline with more patience and tact than they might have in a less hostile environment.